


Some Kind of Burning

by niseag



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Angst, F/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:41:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24640102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niseag/pseuds/niseag
Summary: "She’s losing him. And frankly, that’s just not an option. So the romantic part of their relationship is over? Fine. They can still be friends. Friendship is awesome. And Leslie’s awesome at friendship. If friendship was a competitive sport, Leslie Knope would win every time."Or: The Treaty smut.
Relationships: Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt
Comments: 10
Kudos: 72





	Some Kind of Burning

The romantic part of her relationship with Ben is over.

It’s not like Leslie hadn’t known they were over. They’re not taking a break. They hadn’t agreed to wait. There was nothing they’d said that day in the city manager’s office that had the ring of “we’ll revisit this after the election,” but somehow that’s sort of exactly what Leslie had been hoping they’d do. That tiny, glowing ember had kept her warm for all those weeks until the night the world ended and Leslie had come face to ugly face with the fact that she’s losing him.

And frankly, that’s just not an option.

So the romantic part of their relationship is over? Fine. They can still be _friends_. Friendship is awesome. And Leslie’s awesome at friendship. If friendship was a competitive sport, Leslie Knope would win every time. Ask anyone. Ann will tell you. Even ask Ron.

***

Operation: Be Friends With Ben begins with bringing him his morning latte first thing Monday. He’s already in his office when she gets to work holding one quadruple-shot mocha with extra whip and one skinny latte.

They talk about work and national politics and they absolutely do not talk about the election campaign. It’s friendly. Nice. It really goes quite well, all things considered, except for one moment when Leslie licks her finger clean of whipped cream and Ben chokes on his coffee. And the next moment when Leslie stares at his throat as he swallows. Except for that, it goes well.

A couple of days pass in much the same way. She lends him a book, ignoring his protests that he could borrow it from the library. He mentions a documentary she might like. ( _She’s seen it, but it’s the thought that counts._ ) They have a very nice lunch in a group setting where Leslie and Ben are seated opposite each other at the very end of the table and somehow pass the whole hour without talking to anyone but each other, Leslie fixed all the while on Ben as Ben’s gaze flicks around the rest of the table in a haphazard roulette.

There are hiccups. Of course there are. There’s brushing fingers and lingering glances that leave Ben tense and Leslie weak. Donna gleefully reads out her livetweets from Dexhart’s latest sex scandal and suddenly Ben’s shoelaces are incredibly interesting and Leslie’s routine expenses claim needs urgent attention.

Well, perfect is the enemy of good.

They just need to power through this awkward phase. It’s been less than a week since she showed up on his doorstep to acknowledge a fact that should probably have been obvious in the first place. These are just teething problems. The awkwardness is sure to pass.

What they need is some bonding time to cement their very platonic, non-romantic, definitely non-sexual friendship.

The answer comes to her when she’s looking at the countries she still needs to fill for the high school Model UN conference. She knows for a fact that Ben loved Model UN in high school, nearly as much as he loved Kathy Ireland. Well, Leslie is Pawnee’s Model UN icon—hero, even—and she’s about to blow his fucking mind.

***

This is about friendship. Totally above-board, normal adult friendship. That’s all it is.

“I like it,” Ben’s saying. He stands upright and puts his hands on his hips, thoughtful and serious. “And I see the merits of it. I just worry if we’re both in Asia it might limit our scope.”

God, he’s sexy when he’s shooting down her trans-asiatic alliances. Especially in that tone. She’s heard that tone a lot of times, relatively few of them in the office.

_Fuck._

“Mm.” She hopes that sounds pensive.

He meets her eye. “I kind of want to roll up my sleeves and make geopolitical problem-solving my bitch.”

She’s pretty sure it really is just geopolitical problem-solving that he’s talking about, which isn’t fair at all. That only makes it worse. “Amen, brother,” she says too quickly. Very platonic. Fraternal. “Let’s go back to plan A. I’ll be Denmark, you be Peru.”

Ben pulls his fist through the air and she really can’t help but notice the muscles in his forearms. A familiar heat melts through her belly.

Oh boy.

***

The heat doesn’t go away after Model UN starts. In fact, it only builds while they’re puzzling out the treaty.

She might be letting this run away with her a little, if she’s being completely honest with herself… but she’s not. She’s schoolgirl giddy. She’s flirting with her ex-boyfriend and resurrecting their secret handshake and there’s every possibility that she might be on the verge of falling into the deep end here, heart fluttering and all, when William shows up for the photo op.

Crap, the photo op. 

She slaps Ben in the face on the last beat of their handshake. Double crap. “Sorry!”

“That’s okay,” he says, rubbing his cheek.

The spell breaks.

Flustered, Leslie explains the photo op and tries to save face in front of William. God, please don’t let William have noticed her flirting with Ben.

“Can we just press pause here?” she asks, gathering her stuff.

Ben looks from Leslie to William and back again. “How long is it gonna take?” There’s a crease in his brow. She misses it.

“I’m not really sure. Can you just tread water until I’m ready?”

“Oh sure,” he says sardonically. “Yeah. I’ll just tread water until you’re ready.” She misses the emphasis on _tread water_ , misses the shift in his tone. 

“Thanks, buddy,” Leslie calls as she follows William off the floor, missing the roll of his eyes and his helpless shrug.

Very collegial. She nailed it.

***

There’s something about Russia and maybe Korea and another treaty that Leslie is only half listening to while William hovers and the photographer fusses and the kids shift beside her. 

It’s so great that Ben’s getting into this. She knew he would. Operation: Be Friends With Ben is on fire.

“Oh, um, okay. This should probably take like, five more minutes?”

“Let’s say ten or fifteen to be safe,” says William.

She notices Ben glance at William and frown. “Well how about we make it a cool forty?” Okay, so William is kind of a downer. It’s too bad. Ben’s been having such a good time.

“I’m sorry,” Leslie says, trying to smooth things over. “It’s just important.”

“Well this is important, too. It’s kind of why we came here.”

Leslie knows that and she’s about to say so but before she can answer, the photographer is sweeping Ben to the side out of the shot and he’s saying something sarcastic.

She’s sure he’ll perk up again once they polish off this treaty.

Leslie just has to keep it together. All aboard the friendship train.

***

Ben does not perk up.

In fact, she can’t believe what she’s hearing. He blindsided her and cut her out of her own fucking treaty? _Why?_

Ben is sitting there, glaring. Leslie stares at him in disbelief, something molten churning in the pit of her stomach. It might be shock or despair or possibly an unwelcome reprise of heartbreak. She’s not sure what the shape of it is yet, doesn’t know its shade or its contours, but there is something ugly and wounded swelling inside her. 

“Yeah. I got sick of treading water, so I swam over to Asia and made a deal.” He’s being patronising and snarky. When he looks right at her with hard derision, the thing forms itself firmly into anger. Leslie matches him stare for stare. 

“The nation of Denmark would like to formally request a summit with the nation of Peru. Over there by the refreshment table.” The kid, Cassidy, is giving her a look. “Because the nation of Denmark needs a juice box,” Leslie adds, not taking her eyes off Ben for a second.

He shoots her a look that suggests he’s angry too, throws down his pen and gets up, following her. 

She rounds on him at the refreshments table, face burning, chest tightening. She doesn’t understand what this is, exactly, but she feels the cold weight of a nameless betrayal in her gut. She looks at Ben: _You’d better get explaining, buddy._

Ben holds up his hands. “Leslie, just… look.” He sighs and rubs his forehead with a shaky hand. “I thought I could handle being friends with you. But I can’t, okay? Now, we agreed the other night that we can’t spend time together. I think that was the right call.”

Leslie frowns. Why is he back on their breakup? They’re past that now, aren’t they?

“But that was in a romantic way,” she protests, nonplussed. "We can still spend time together as friends.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” he says with some frustration. The thing in her gut twists sharply. “You can’t just chop up the aspects of a relationship into discrete parts and select the ones you want like a buffet.”

There’s something rough and tense and desperate in Ben as he looks at her with darkened eyes, demanding something she can’t comprehend, much less give him. She’s not sure where this is going but she doesn’t like it one bit.

Besides, everything he just said is the stupidest thing she’s ever heard. 

“Why not?” she says incredulously. As if there’s an alternative.

“Because it’s selfish.” Ben looks her right in the eye, but she still can’t grasp what he’s saying, feels him slipping through her fingers like half-dry sand. She doesn’t understand. “Stop being obtuse.”

He walks away. Leaves her standing by the refreshment table, staring at nothing.

She’s been broken up with in a hundred horrible ways but not one of them has ever made Leslie feel so callously discarded as she does right now.

And by someone who, she’d thought, had once really cared about her.

She’s been nothing but honest, upfront, and she’d thought Ben ( _of all the people in the world_ ) would understand. But no. He doesn’t even want to be her friend.

Right. Well. That puts things in perspective.

Ben’s a fucking asshole. Leslie presses her fingers to her eyes, clears away the moisture that’s threatening to become real tears.

She builds a dam of anger around her to hold back the heartbreak.

And she declares war.

***

Ben has the gall to show his face in Europe while Leslie is sourcing tanks to add to her militia of rockets, subs, missiles, battleships, airstrike drones and some ten thousand lions.

He stands opposite her at the other end of the table, pinching his nose. “Things are starting to get a little out of control here.”

Well, too late. If he had come to her half an hour ago, if he hadn’t walked away from her in the first place, maybe she’d want to _talk to him rationally_ , or whatever stick-up-the-ass thing it is he intends to say. Not now. By now her anger has had time to fester and percolate, burning in every part of her body. She is radiant with it.

Ben Wyatt doesn’t get to throw her away and expect her to be fine with that.

“I agree. You betrayed me and you went behind my back. And now you need to pay.”

He scoffs. “I need to—I need to pay?” 

“Do I stutter?” 

Ben stares at her, hands low on his hips, calculating. “You know what?” he says, pulling something out of his pocket. She imagines the muscles in his forearm flexing beneath his sleeve. “You might want to borrow this.” Ben hurls a white flag across the table with something dark and savage in his eyes and, in that moment, something breaks.

Ben starts shouting—really shouting—at Leslie for the very first time in her life and the enormity of it hits her with force. Because Leslie is the one with the temper. _Leslie_ burns. Never Ben.

Something hot and carnal and unfurls within her, rising to meet him—and then Leslie is yelling back, staring Ben down, heart hammering. Her voice catches in her throat and he’s looking at her like she is prey and she’s sure, she’s _sure_ it isn’t just her who’s on fire.

She’s lost something important, she thinks. Control, possibly.

Afterwards Leslie couldn’t tell you what she said. All she knows is that it’s followed by a wake of silence. Aside from the sound of her own wild breath in her chest, there is nothing. Nothing but her pulse, his animal gaze on her, the swelling heat. 

Ben stares. “Good lord.”

Leslie stares back.

The air burns.

***

Leslie isn’t any less angry after they thunder off in opposite directions. In fact, the feeling only swells.

Because she can see very clearly that Ben is livid. She feels his anger in her bones, but it’s a capricious thing that she can’t see or touch or examine. It has a shape, she knows it does, but she can’t work out how to grasp it.

If she knew what it was, if she understood him, she’d probably know for sure that he’s being an ass and she could look him in the eye and tell him to go fuck himself. Find some closure.

But she doesn’t know and the doubt gnaws at her. He’s got the upper hand somehow. He knows something she doesn’t and it’s making her crazy. 

She needs to get a grip. 

With no small difficulty ( _and after a phone call to Ann disguised as a trip to the bathroom_ ), Leslie manages to push Ben from her mind and dedicates the entire force of her willpower to personally destroying the nation of Peru—which is a different thing from personally destroying Benjamin Walker Wyatt.

If Leslie catches Ben shooting her black, heated looks, if despite all her best efforts he must catch her returning them, well, she’s just not going to think about it.

She regains her composure. Steadies herself. Gets a hold of things. Ben’s looks grow darker and hotter, but she thinks things will stay at a simmer long enough to get through the rest of the conference.

Of course, she’s wrong.

Ben boils over, damns the torpedoes and blows it all directly to hell. And maybe Leslie really hadn’t regained her hold on the situation at all because suddenly, in a whirl of unbridled rage, she finds herself banging the lectern with her shoe and launching a secession campaign with no clear idea how she got there.

Ben’s standing on the floor by the stage by the time her explosion is over, hands on his hips. Leslie marches up to him. “What is your problem?” she hisses, standing close.

“My problem?” He’s deadpan, inscrutable. Leslie can feel the heat of his body. He’s near now, closer than he’s been since their last morning in bed together on the day that it ended.

“Yeah.” 

His gaze is hard. “Really— _my_ problem?”

“Yes, Ben, your—”

He looks around sharply then locks onto her. “I think we should talk outside.” He doesn’t wait for a reply, just grabs her by the upper arm, fingers digging into her through her jacket. He ignores her protests as Leslie scowls and tries to break free, but he’s got a firm hold and she doesn’t have much choice but to follow, whispering furious obscenities at him as she goes.

“You’re being a total jackass,” she says as soon as they’re in the hall, wrenching her arm from his grip. He lets her go. She goes toe to toe with him, chin set defiantly as she looks him in the eye. He puts his hands on his hips again, aggressive.

“I’m… good lord, Leslie, you are the most stubborn—”

“I’ve been trying to be your—”

“—most selfish, impossible person I’ve ever—”

“ _I’m_ selfish?”

“Yes! Yeah, Leslie, you’re—”

“I’m not the one who dumped you like day-old chowder the moment we—” Leslie breaks off, looks around and, mercifully, she thinks better of continuing in the open hallway. There’s a supply closet just opposite where they’re standing and this time Leslie digs into Ben’s arm and wheels him into it, slamming the door behind them. It’s cramped and they’re inches from being pressed up against each other. She points a finger at him, seething. “I’m not the one who dumped you like day-old chowder the moment we stopped fucking, Ben, so you can stop with your moral superiority!”

She squares herself and tilts her face up to his so she can glare at him. It’s dark. There’s no light switch. She’s guided only by the feel of his heavy breath on her face and the distant muscle memory from days when she’d been this close to Ben for reasons other than wanting to rip into him.

“What?”

“You heard me. I’m trying, I’m really trying to be friends with you, Ben, but you’re just—”

“No, what did you say?” 

“—being a callous ass,” she barrels on, ignoring him. “You know, if you didn’t give a shit, you didn’t need to act like breaking up was in my best interests.” Her voice is low and hoarse with fury that threatens to break and spill into hot tears. “You could have just been honest, but I guess I’m just the idiot who didn’t know any better, again,” she throws up her hands, “and I really—”

“Leslie,” he growls. Ben’s hands come up to grip her by the upper arms, trapping her hands against his chest. His breath is warm and ragged and all too close. “Leslie, shut up. We were not _fucking_. Don’t tell me we were just fucking.”

“Weren’t we? Because you—”

His fingers tighten almost painfully. “Stop. Stop telling me what I’m feeling, Leslie—god, you’re impossible, do you know that? You can’t seriously be this obtuse—”

“How?” she hisses. “How am I being obtuse? Because I want to be _friends_ with you?”

“YES!”

“ _Why_?”

“Because,” he says angrily. She can just make out the glint of his eyes in the darkness, feel the hitch of his breath hot on her lips. “ _Leslie_ , because I—fuck—” He’s pleading now. “ _Because I'm in—_ ” 

He doesn’t finish. She doesn’t let him.

Understanding doesn’t so much dawn on her as it crashes down, cataclysmic and horrible. Because Leslie _does_ understand this. Didn’t she spend years hung up on someone she couldn’t be with, always at his side and always a little wounded by the absence of something more? Can she earnestly blame him for being stronger than she’d been? And suddenly she sees everything she’s missed, all the ways he’s tried to pull away from her, understands the long looks and the tension in his frame.

And really, knowing in the marrow of her bones what he was about to say, Leslie couldn’t be making a worse choice.

But she can’t let him say it. She can’t. It’s too much.

Leslie crashes her body into Ben’s and kisses him with everything she has. Her hands sweep up around his neck and into his hair as she pulls him to her. A beat passes before he responds and a small, sane part of Leslie screams that she’s just jumped off the ledge with nothing below to catch her and oh, god, she might just be about to die—but then his hands move from her arms to the back of her neck and he’s kissing her back, hotter and harder.

One of Ben’s hands slips into her hair and the other tightens at the nape of her neck, his thumb coming around to the side to press on her pulse point. She growls against his mouth and he pushes her up against the wall, fingers tightening on her.

She’s been burning all day but this is a new fire, bright and hot and thrilling. She pushes up against him, biting at his lower lip, but he presses her back again with that one hand on her neck. 

Leslie pulls back after a moment, panting, eyes wide and alive. Her hands drop from his hair to his shoulders. “Ben—”

“Shut up, Leslie.” The hand in her hair moves to her shoulder, pinning her in place. The fingers against her neck firm, holding her. “Please just shut up.” He crashes his mouth back down to hers and she meets him with fervour, relishing the feeling of pressure against her throat as she pushes closer to him, pulling at the lapels of his jacket, grabbing at his tie. With his body flush against hers, she can feel exactly how much he wants her. When he moans into her mouth, she nips at his lip the way she remembers he likes and he moans again, louder. 

Leslie pushes her hands into his jacket, tugging his shirt from his pants so she can feel the heat of his skin against her fingers. His grip on her tightens as she digs her nails into her back.

She isn’t gentle. There’ll be marks on him tomorrow.

He isn’t gentle either. She throbs almost painfully as the hand on her shoulder moves to her chest, hard and desperate, and his mouth moves to her jaw, her neck, down to the opening of her shirt, still holding her by the throat with his other hand. 

Long, heady minutes pass before Ben takes his hands off her to shove at her blazer, biting at her crook of her neck while he pushes it from her shoulders. He works on the buttons of her shirt as her hands make their way back into his hair.

He’s back on her as soon as her shirt is undone, kissing his way roughly down her chest down to her breasts. He pushes her bra out of the way to take one in his mouth, sucking wetly, greedily, grazing at her nipple with sharp teeth while he works his left hand over her other breast.

Leslie moans. If they’re doing this, they’re doing it far too slowly. “Ben,” she breathes, scraping at his back imploringly. If they’re doing this, she needs him now.

She turns him, presses him up against the wall and starts to work on his belt, but Ben only grabs her by the wrists and pulls her hands up, gripping them in a vice and Leslie understands what he’s saying perfectly: she might have started this, but he’s going to finish it.

He keeps a tight hold on her as he kisses down her jaw, her neck, down her chest, and only lets go when he drops to take in the dip of her waist and the soft curve of her stomach. She’s aching by the time Ben pulls at her slacks, tugging them down her legs, and finally—finally—as he’s sucking a hickey into her hip, he puts his hand on her through the damp fabric of her underwear.

“Fuck,” he murmurs against her skin. “Leslie.”

She lets out a strangled moan and grabs at his hair as he peels her panties off her. Leslie steps out of them. Holy shit, she’s standing in nothing but her heels, naked from the waist down with her shirt unbuttoned and bra askew, in a supply closet with her very clothed boss and ex-boyfriend.

It’s the most dangerous, scandalous thing she’s ever done—and that’s including pulling her pants down on live television. _Fuck._ If she wasn’t already incredibly turned on…

And then he touches her, and it’s like seeing god. He runs his hands up her thighs, cradles her ass with one and dips into her slick, warm folds with the other. There’s only the slightest moment of hesitation before he replaces his fingers with his mouth, tongue tracing her in all the ways he knows she loves.

He teases her in circles and swirls, giving but not giving enough. Leslie whines and grips his hair tighter. He pulls back from her and runs his fingers over her again, delving into her this time, thumb on her clit as he beckons to her from inside her body, coaxing her closer. Closer, but not close enough.

Leslie lets out a deep, animal sound born from the molten pit of her stomach. “Fuck me,” she growls. “Ben. Fuck me. I need you to fuck me right now.”

He rises, fingers still inside her. She’s asked him to fuck her before, but never like this. She realises too late that it might have been the wrong thing to say now. He looks at her, eyes dark again. “I’m not just fucking you,” he says, pressing hard on her clit. Leslie whimpers. “You know I’m not just fucking you.”

“I know,” she whispers.

_Don’t say it. Please, don’t say it._

He considers her for a moment that stretches into forever before he makes a decision ( _Leslie doesn’t know what options he was weighing or what he has decided, but even in the dim light she she still recognises the look of something falling into place behind his eyes_ ) and presses his mouth to hers—not gently, but more gently than before—exploring her with his tongue like he’s tasting her for the first time. She’s still on his lips. With the hand that isn’t touching her, he takes her wrist and guides her to his waist. Leslie gets to work on his belt buckle with trembling fingers, fumbles with the fastenings and drops his pants, wrapping her fingers around his cock.

He moans into her mouth. He picks her up easily and presses her against the wall. And then he fucks her until her vision blurs around the edges, until she forgets where she is, until she forgets he isn’t hers.

***

They clean up with Ben’s white flag and dress in sweaty silence, avoiding each other’s gazes until they’re both clothed and decent.

Ben is already looking at her when she lifts her eyes. There’s something softer in his gaze than she’s seen all day—in fact, softer than she’s seen in weeks. They consider each other, neither sure of what to say.

“I’m still angry with you,” he says after a moment.

“And I’m still mad at you.”

“You can’t do this, you know, Leslie,” Ben says, rubbing his cheek. “You can’t know how I feel and try to force me to settle for just part of you.”

Leslie thinks of a younger, sadder version of herself and thinks she might have to concede on that point. She grimaces, shrugging her blazer on. “And you had no right to cut me out of the treaty.”

Ben almost smiles. “It wasn’t about the treaty.”

“I know,” she says, brushing her hair out from under her collar. “That’s why I’m so mad. You should have just… you should have just said.”

“Yeah,” he concedes. “I suppose I should have.”

“You’re just—you’re too important to me.”

“Leslie. Please...”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m sorry. I just…”

“Yeah. I know.”

The tiny room suddenly feels too small, too cramped, too still and dusty. It had been all of those things before, but they’d filled the space with everything between them and she just hadn’t had the presence to notice it. But suddenly, it’s claustrophobic.

“Oh god,” Leslie says, hugging herself. “What do we do now?”

Ben smiles sadly, looking at the ground. “Well, nothing’s changed.”

But Leslie’s not sure that’s true. She’s not exactly sure what, but there’s been a seismic shift somewhere. There is something new about the state of the world that is different to how it was five days ago at Mick Jagger’s gas station or this morning or an hour ago.

“Hasn’t it?”

Ben looks up. “What?”

“I think I’m going crazy,” Leslie confesses. “I think about you all the time. And today… now... I don’t know, Ben, hasn’t it?”

He looks dubious, a little desperate. “I really don’t know, Leslie.” Maybe just the tiniest bit hopeful. “Do you think so?”

Leslie bites her lip. “Is there a way we could do this?”

“I… well, what would you propose?” 

“I don’t know,” Leslie breathes. “I don’t know.” She presses her eyes closed and opens them again, meeting Ben’s gaze anxiously. God, she wants this. She hadn’t even realised how much she wants this. “But we’re both pretty decent problem-solvers, aren’t we? When we’re not violating the Geneva Convention? We could… we could try to work something out.”

“I see the merit in it,” Ben says slowly, smiling for real and giving her a look that makes her heart skip a beat or two. 

“Yeah.”

“So… we could try to roll up our sleeves and, um, make relationship problem-solving our bitch. Later. If—if you want to.”

Leslie nods eagerly, feeling lighter than she has in weeks. “I’d really, really like that.”

“Yeah. Me too,” Ben says, grinning stupidly.

“Awesome.”

“Great.” He looks over her shoulder and raises an eyebrow. “Should we, you know… get out of this closet?”

“Oh, yeah. Definitely.”

With Ben’s hand on the small of her back, Leslie steps out of the closet and into the hallway.

And wow—the light is blinding.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Zi & Gracie, you beautiful beta fish!


End file.
